My LCS has JLA Vol 1, Flash Vol 1, Gotham Central Vol 1 for about $45 and a Doom Patrol Vol 1 for $68. Can anyone recommend one over the others? I havent read much in the last 20 years other than some Walking Dead collections and a few trades here and there. Figure a large book like this would be a way to ease back in but dont really know if any of these are good. Figured I would get a few opinions here.

I love Gotham Central. It's the series that the show Gotham should have been based on as it focus on Gotham PD characters living in the Batman era. It would have been a perfect show for FX, AMC or HBO.

The only era I've really read of that bunch is JLA, and honestly it doesn't read that well in bulk. There's a lot of formulaic stories in which the JLA divides into three teams of two heroes each. Each pair has trouble with the bad guys, then they switch opponents and cruise to victory.

In some ways, it's a good entry point for a reader because of the familiar heroes, and there's some good stuff in there, but I can't read a lot of it in a sitting. Same with a lot of that Silver Age DC stuff.

I was leaning toward Gotham Central initially. I have no idea what Doom Patrol is and it does cost half again as much. I guess I should have looked better to see what era the JLA and Flash were. I still have the Big Damn Sin City to read as well so may start that first. Just wanted opinions on the stories if anyone knew about them. Would hate to miss out on a decent deal on some good stuff.

For someone just dipping their toe back into superhero comics, Gotham Central is probably the best choice. It's a procedural, like many of the shows on TV these days, and the focus is on ordinary people trying to cope with the insanity of life in a metahuman universe. The serial storytelling is better suited to binge-reading than most Silver Age tales, which are pretty repetitive (and aimed at younger readers to boot.) It's also very well-written and illustrated.

If the Doom Patrol omnibus collects Grant Morrison's run - well, it's a very well-regarded series and one of my old favorites. It was The Matrix before The Matrix was, only with extradimensional bugs instead of rogue AIs and a hell of a lot more drugs. Great stuff at the time, but I don't know how well it holds up these days, especially to a new reader.

The Doom Patrol stuff is inspired and it's huge. Which volume of Flash? Is this the Silver Age omnibus or the Flash by Geoff Johns Vol. 1? There are like three or four different Flash omnibuses listed as #1.

I've never read Gotham Central. I always got the impression it wasn't as focused on cape stuff, which doesn't really interest me.